Tharman gives assurance on CPF retirement savings

CPF Life will help low and lower-middle income meet typical spending needs

By Cai Haoxiang, The Straits Times, 6 Mar 2012

DEPUTY Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam yesterday reassured MPs concerned about whether people have enough retirement savings, citing figures to show the Central Provident Fund (CPF) system meets the basic retirement needs of low to lower-middle income Singaporeans.

He also clarified the role of the mandatory savings scheme, saying it is not designed to meet the needs of higher-income earners, who often have private savings outside the CPF.

The Minimum Sum that a CPF member must set aside at age 55 is now $131,000. That sum gives a monthly income of $1,100 for life from age 65 under the CPF Life annuity scheme.

It is enough to meet the typical spending needs of a two-member, lower-middle income retiree household - that is, one between the 20th and 40th percentile by income.

Mr Tharman also announced that the CPF Life scheme would be simplified, ahead of the annuity scheme becoming compulsory for CPF members who turn 55 from next year. The number of CPF Life plans will be cut from four to two based on feedback from 73,000 who signed up voluntarily.

Govt must be seen to be walking the talk

More visible productivity drive could set example for rest

By Ignatius Low, The Straits Times, 3 Mar 2012

YESTERDAY'S Committee of Supply proceedings, and to some extent the debate over the Budget that preceded it, saw the return of two commonly held perceptions about the Singapore Government.

The first is that when it rolls out a new scheme, it likes to make things unnecessarily complex. There is usually a whole host of qualifying criteria, and the benefits are often finely gradated by segment.

To make sure that an applicant really qualifies and gets exactly the right amount of help - no more and no less - a lot of questions are asked, which in turn translates to a lot of paperwork.

Depending on how you see it, this can be a strength or a weakness. On the one hand, it shows we have a prudent Government that is always seeking to stretch every dollar it spends.

On the other hand, the complexity of the scheme can stand in the way of the help getting to intended recipients, as several MPs have noted has been the case with the Government's new Productivity and Innovation Credit (PIC) scheme.

Special Employment Credit (SEC)

Employers to receive Special Employment Credit for hiring older workers

By Saifulbahri Ismail, Channel NewAsia, 3 Mar 2012

More than 52,000 employers will receive a total of about S$19 million this month under the Special Employment Credit (SEC).

The amount is for employing about 171,000 older low-wage Singaporeans in the second half of 2011.

Introduced last year, the SEC aims to encourage companies to employ more older workers by subsidising their wages.

The first disbursement was made in September 2011 and more than 51,000 companies have benefited from it so far.

An enhanced scheme was announced at this year's Budget to enable a bigger pool of older workers to qualify.

The first payment of the enhanced SEC will take place in September 2012.

Juraimi Lee has been working in the pest control management industry for more than 20 years.

The 61-year-old started as a junior technician and he has worked his way up to become an operations executive.

He said: "We inspect all the problems based on what the customers tell us. By the end of the job, if he said very good, we will feel happy, we feel proud that we did a proper job for them."

Pestbusters has 12 workers aged above 50, and most of them have been with the company for a long time.

Pestbusters has been receiving wage subsidies from the government for employing older workers like Juraimi. 

The company wants to take in more of such workers, but they are finding it hard to recruit them.

Yaacob calls for Internet code of conduct

By Hoe Yeen Nie, Channel NewsAsia, 2 Mar 2012

Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts, Dr Yaacob Ibrahim, has called on the online community to develop an Internet code of conduct.

This is an area being looked at by the Media Development Authority (MDA) to build a safe online environment.

But in the case of the code of conduct, Dr Yaacob said the online community must take the lead.

"The Internet is very much a public space, and the community is best placed to determine what online behaviour is acceptable and what is not," Dr Yaacob said. "Moderators, website owners and the broader Internet community can help to set the tone and guidelines for online interaction and behaviour."

Dr Yaacob also addressed concerns raised by members over cyber bullying.

He said Singapore has adopted a two-pronged approach of legislative measures and public education to tackle the problem, and the Home Affairs Ministry is reviewing legal instruments to deal with wrongful Internet behaviour.

He also suggested that the online community should foster a culture of netiquette or a code of conduct to encourage gracious behaviour online.

Help retirees in private properties: HDB replies

Seniors have flexible options, replies HDB

NEW HDB flats are highly subsidised and largely meant for those who have yet to own any property, or who are of an income level where private property may be out of their reach ('Private home owners' by Mr Michael Leong, Feb 23; 'Homes: Help retirees with a flexible policy' by Mrs Doreen Chia-Foo, Tuesday; and 'Help struggling retirees in private properties' by Mr Raymond Koh Bock Swi, Forum Online on Wednesday).

A retiree who already owns a private property and who wishes to monetise it for retirement has a few options.

If he sells his private property, he can buy a resale HDB flat or a studio apartment with the proceeds, without having to wait for 30 months after the sale of his property. He has to wait for 30 months only if he chooses to buy a new HDB build-to-order flat, which is sold at subsidised prices.

Nonetheless, HDB does exercise flexibility to help our residents on a case- by-case basis. Elderly residents who need further assistance can contact us on 1800-8663066, and we will see how best to help them.

Chan-Wong Jee Choo Lily (Mrs)

Deputy Director (Policy and Property)

HDB

ST Forum, 2 Mar 2012

Private property retirees must be realistic

I HAVE difficulty agreeing with Mr Raymond Koh Bock Swi ('Help struggling retirees in private properties'; Forum Online, Wednesday) and Madam Lizhen Zehnder-Zhang ('Don't forget retirees living in private properties'; Forum Online, yesterday).

The Housing Board's primary role is to ensure that young couples have roofs over their heads to raise small families in a tough economic environment.

People who own private properties do not need help as much compared with citizens who are still without a modest public flat.

When my wife and I married in the 1970s, we lived in a rented HDB flat as we struggled to raise three children.

My salary disqualified me from applying for an HDB flat.

In the next decade, we bought our first landed property - a new intermediate terraced house, for $850,000.

After seven comfortable and contented years, we had to carry out major repairs to a leaking roof and a termite-infested kitchen which set us back $35,000.

When I retired at age 57, I decided that it would be more prudent to relocate to a five-room HDB flat.

We sold our terraced house for $1.3 million and bought our first HDB flat for $470,000, paying hard cash.

My wife and I calculated that the cash we unlocked from selling our landed home and my NTUC Income annuity bought with my Central Provident Fund contributions would see us through our sunset years.

By then, two of our children were working while the third was studying in a polytechnic.

We must be realistic. People who wish to live in a private home must have a regular income to maintain it.

We were aware that we could not expect government assistance to maintain a private property.

If we do not plan for our retirement, we cannot blame the Government even if we are saddled with a sprawling private property in a dilapidated condition due to wear and tear.

Heng Cho Choon

ST Forum, 2 Mar 2012

Don't forget retirees living in private properties

I AGREE with Mrs Doreen Chia-Foo ('Homes: Help retirees with a flexible policy'; Tuesday). Retirees who live in private properties are not necessarily well off.

We belong to the generation who started working when we were teenagers. We did not expect government assistance but contributed quietly to the nation's success.

Many of us were ineligible for an HDB flat, but had to scrimp and save to buy and live in a private property. Today, we are old, no longer employable but unwilling to burden our children. Neither do we wish to burden other taxpayers.

Instead of depleting our savings before our time runs out, we are only asking for an opportunity to buy an HDB flat to live in, and to rent out our private property for living expenses and income to cover medical bills.

Retirees are not found only in HDB homes, but also in private properties. But those who live in private properties seem to have been forgotten.

A private property does not necessarily mean a sprawling bungalow, but also an old apartment.

Lizhen Zehnder-Zhang (Madam)

ST Forum, 1 Mar 2012

Homes: Help retirees with a flexible policy

LIKE Mr Michael Leong, my husband and I are private property owners and we do not receive the subsidies enjoyed by HDB flat dwellers ('Private home owners'; last Thursday).

Like most citizens who are slightly better off financially, we accept the Government's policies even though I am of the view that income is a better yardstick to measure eligibility rather than whether a person lives in private or public housing.

I also think that retirees should be financially independent and not use their children as annuities, if they can help it.

To help older citizens like us achieve financial independence, housing policies should be tweaked to help retirees.

Let retirees who are owners of private properties buy new HDB flats or resale flats without having to wait for 21/2 years. Thirty months is far too long a waiting period to downgrade to a public housing flat. The cost of rental could well go towards the payment for the flat.

Retirees should also be allowed to keep their private properties for rental income as this may well be their only means of income, without having to worry whether their hard-earned nest egg will be depleted too soon.

I have worked hard all my life. Retirement is the time for me to relax a little and enjoy my twilight years. Retirees need income streams to sustain themselves.

Would-be retirees like myself are not asking for handouts, only flexibility in housing policies that will help us cope during retirement without having to seek employment or worry the way we did when we were working.

Doreen Chia-Foo (Mrs)

ST Forum, 28 Feb 2012

Help struggling retirees in private properties

PRIVATE property owners, unlike HDB dwellers, are mostly excluded from help programmes and handouts from the Government ('Private home owners' by Mr Tan Guan Rong; Feb 21). While most private property owners are financially better off, it may not be so for seniors or retirees.

In my neighbourhood alone, there are two retirees who are siblings and who live in a rundown owner-occupied home they inherited from their parents. The two, a man and his sister, would salvage waste paper and discarded electronic goods to eke out a living. 

Because of emotional attachment, it is difficult to move out from familiar surroundings, especially as one ages. Selling the property and downgrading is not as simple and straightforward as many make it out to be. 

That is why the Government should give greater flexibility for retirees to purchase HDB flats to generate a source of steady cash flow from rental payments, provided they have their own funds or can meet the more stringent borrowing requirements for older people without salaries.

There are also other similar situations that the Government or institutions can positively discriminate in favour of seniors and retirees.

Raymond Koh Bock Swi

ST Forum, 29 Feb 2012

Private home owners

'HDB should allow retirees like me to own new flats before selling off our existing properties.'

MR MICHAEL LEONG: 'My wife and I do not enjoy the benefits given to seniors and lower-income groups under this year's Budget, because I do not live in an HDB flat ('Private home owners' by Mr Tan Guan Rong; Tuesday). About six years ago, my wife and I bought a resale executive condominium. We live on my meagre annuity of less than $500 a month and moderate savings, which will not last much longer. We want to downgrade to unlock the value of our property, so that we can continue to be self-reliant rather than depend on government handouts. We want to resettle in a new HDB flat, but to do so, we must sell our property and wait 21/2 years before we can apply for a flat. The HDB should allow retirees like me to apply for and own new flats before selling off our existing properties within six months from the date of obtaining the keys to the flats. This would certainly reduce much inconvenience of having to look for temporary accommodation, and to move again and again.'

ST Forum, 23 Feb 2012

The political economy of superstars

By Kenneth Rogoff, Published The Straits Times, 5 Mar 2012

THE biggest news around Cambridge in recent weeks has been Jeremy Lin, the Harvard economics graduate who has shocked the National Basketball Association by rising overnight from 'nowhere' to become a genuine star, leading a losing New York Knicks team to an unlikely string of victories.

Lin's success is delicious, partly because it contradicts so many cultural pre-judices about Asian-American athletes. Flabbergasted experts who overlooked Lin have been saying things like 'he just didn't look the part'. Lin's obvious integrity and graciousness has won him fans outside the sport as well. The whole world has taken note, with Lin being featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated for two consecutive issues. The NBA, which has been trying to build brand recognition and interest in China, is thrilled.

I confess to being a huge Lin fan. Indeed, my teenage son has been idolising Lin's skills and work ethic ever since Lin starred on the Harvard team. But, as an economist observing the public's seething anger over the 'one percenters', or individuals with exceptionally high incomes, I also see a different, overlooked facet of the story.

What amazes me is the public's blase acceptance of the salaries of sports stars, compared to its low regard for superstars in business and finance. Half of all NBA players' annual salaries exceed US$2 million (S$2.5 million), more than five times the threshold for the top one per cent of household incomes in the United States. Because long-time superstars like Kobe Bryant earn upwards of US$25 million a year, the average annual NBA salary is more than US$5 million. Indeed, Lin's salary, at US$800,000, is the NBA's 'minimum wage' for a second-season player. Presumably, Lin will soon be earning much more, and fans will applaud.

Yet many of these same fans would almost surely argue that chief executive officers of Fortune 500 companies, whose median compensation is around US$10 million, are ridiculously overpaid. If a star basketball player reacts a split-second faster than his competitors, no one has a problem with his earning more for every game than five factory workers do in a year. But if, say, a financial trader or a corporate executive is paid a fortune for being a shade faster than competitors, the public suspects that he or she is undeserving or, worse, a thief.

Economists have long studied the economics of superstars in fields where a company can lever enormously the decisions of a small number of individuals, making them valuable in a way that someone who can, say, chop down trees like the legendary Paul Bunyan, is not. But the political economy of what levels of income differences countries will tolerate remains uncharted territory.

Of course, there is a certain logic to the public's disdain for superstar compensation outside of professional sports and entertainment. This is especially the case in some areas of finance that are essentially zero-sum games, in which one person's gain is another's loss. There are other areas, such as technology, in which someone like Apple's late founder Steve Jobs arguably delivers real innovation and quality, rather than just employing lawyers and lobbyists to maintain a monopoly position.

As a basketball fan, I would not describe the sport as a zero-sum game, even though one team wins and one team loses. The best players have huge creative flair. But so do some 'street ball' players who excel in slam-dunk theatrics; perhaps because they are not tall enough to compete, they make almost nothing.

Do fans tolerate outsize sports incomes because players are role models? Many certainly are, but not all high-paid sports celebrities are exemplary citizens. Michael Vick, a star quarterback in the US National Football League, served time in prison for running a vicious dog-fighting operation, and arrests of players on charges ranging from illegal possession of drugs and weapons to domestic battery have been a regular occurrence.

And, back on the field or court, serious infractions occur all the time. Think of Zinedine Zidane's infamous head butt in the 2006 football World Cup. In the NBA itself, a star player, Ron Artest, was suspended for the remainder of the 2004 season after going into the stands and brawling with heckling fans during a game. (Artest has now changed his name to Metta World Peace, perhaps in response.)

Moreover, sports teams surely lobby governments as aggressively as any big business. Professional sport is a legislated monopoly in most countries, with top teams extracting free stadiums and other privileges from host cities. Indeed, Lin's story, it should be remembered, grew out of a huge labour dispute between the NBA's billionaire owners and its millionaire players over division of the league's nearly US$4 billion in annual revenues - more than many countries' national income.

As the late University of Chicago economist Sherwin Rosen postulated, globalisation and changing communication technologies have increasingly made the economics of superstars important in a variety of fields. That is certainly true in sports and entertainment, but it is also the case in business and finance.

I wish Lin a long and successful career as a superstar, though he will have already had a huge cultural impact even if his success proves meteoric. One can hope that, as Asian-Americans continue to break barriers in other arenas - they remain under-represented among corporate CEOs, for example - these rising superstars will be greeted with similar acclaim.

If the public is not happy about high superstar incomes, the obvious remedy is to improve the tax system, including for powerful sports-team owners, many of whom benefit from huge tax breaks in their day jobs. Who knows? With a more level playing field, superstars outside sports and entertainment might find themselves a bit better appreciated.

The writer is Professor of Economics and Public Policy at Harvard University, and was formerly chief economist at the International Monetary Fund.

PROJECT SYNDICATE

No rebates this year but tax rate still attractive

Some tax savings have already been factored into the new rates

By Lee Su Shyan, The Sunday Times, 4 Mar 2012

Many individual taxpayers have grown used to looking forward to Budget time, anticipating goodies from the Finance Minister.

Last year, taxpayers cheered the scrapping of the annual television licence fee and radio licence fee. Although the amounts were not large, at $110 and $27 respectively, it came as a pleasant surprise nonetheless.

One feature in recent years has been an income tax rebate of 20 per cent, capped at $2,000 for the year. In some years, it has been a 10 per cent rebate, in others 15 per cent.

For someone with a tax bill of around $10,000, that would bring the amount paid down to $8,000, a substantial reduction.

The announcement of an income tax rebate during the Budget helps take away some of the sting of having to pay one's taxes as the tax filing season gets under way soon after.

But although a one-off tax rebate gives more flexibility to the Government, it disappeared from this year's Budget, disappointing many taxpayers.

But disappointment aside, some tax savings have in reality already been factored into the new tax rates.

10 food centres awarded Blue Ribbon for going smoke-free

By Sharon See, Channel NewsAsia, 4 Mar 2012

Ten markets and food centres have pledged to be completely smoke-free.

All part of an anti-tobacco movement launched by the Health Promotion Board (HPB) to reduce second-hand smoke.

Upper Boon Keng Market and Food Centre has just been awarded a Blue Ribbon for going smoke-free.

The Blue Ribbon initiative is part of a larger smoke-free movement started by the World Health Organisation Western Pacific Region.

And Singapore is now the first country in the region to adopt this initiative on a nationwide scale with 10 markets and food centres voluntarily taking the lead.

Minister of State for Health Amy Khor said: "In fact, food centres, they can have smoking corners, but they've actually removed this demarcated smoking zone to make the environment smoke-free because they support this smoke-free movement. And they believe that it will not affect their business."

Dr Chia Chan Puay, vice chairman, Upper Boon Keng Blk 17 Hawkers' and Shopkeepers' Association, said: "It should not have a big effect, and it's really a small sacrifice for the sake of health."

HPB hopes to get 20 per cent of the 107 markets and food centres to be part of the Blue Ribbon movement by end 2013.

It's also counting on volunteers to go around the neighbourhoods to promote a smoke-free lifestyle and voluntary no-smoking zones at void decks and common corridors.

Tan Kin Teo, health ambassador, HPB, said: "Whenever resident or public pick up the brochures on 'I Quit', we will approach them to find out whether they came to the motion for themselves or (for) their family members who want to quit smoking. From there, we can work with them and come up with mentoring programmes to quit smoking."

Singapore is hosting the 15th World Conference on Tobacco or Health (WCTOH) from 20 to 24 March, where international experts and leaders congregate for debate as well as sharing of perspectives.

The health ambassadors will also go door-to-door to hand out Blue Ribbons and kits to help smokers quit.

The 10 markets and food centres are:

ABC Brickworks Market & Food Centre

Adam Road Food Centre

Albert Centre Market & Food Centre

Blk 79 and 79A Circuit Road Food Centre

Blk 89 Circuit Road Food Centre

Ghim Moh Market & Food Centre

Kaki Bukit 511 Market & Food Centre

Kovan Hougang Market & Food Centre

Upper Boon Keng Market & Food Centre

Tampines Round Market & Food Centre

Earn $1000 a month and you want to buy a flat?!

The maths of buying a flat

By Daryl Chin, The Straits Times, 3 Mar 2012

ANYONE with an income of $1,000 can buy a Housing Board flat, the assertion went. But the figure startled many and yesterday, it was National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan's turn to explain the maths.

During Thursday's Budget debate, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam rebutted a claim by Workers' Party NCMP Gerald Giam that many younger Singaporeans from low-income households, who dream of buying a house for themselves and their parents, will find this difficult. Mr Tharman said that 98 per cent of Singaporeans below 35 earn at least $1,000 and are able to buy flats.

Said Mr Khaw: 'This piece of comment caused a stir precisely because it sounded so incredible.'

Mr Tharman was referring to a new two-room flat, he explained.

He pointed out that the subsidised price of new two-roomers was about $100,000, if the applicant is a first-timer. He will also be entitled to housing grants of up to $60,000.

'So the net selling price to him is about $40,000, and the monthly mortgage payment of such an HDB loan can be fully recovered from his Central Provident Fund contribution,' said Mr Khaw.

He added that most two-room applicants earn above that income ceiling, pointing out that their median income based on recent BTO launches stood at about $1,400.

Singaporeans are donating more

Gifts doubled over past decade despite charity scandals and recession

By Theresa Tan, The Sunday Times, 4 Mar 2012

Singaporeans gave more to charity over the past decade despite the global financial meltdown and high-profile charity scandals here, a new study has found.

Gifts to Institutions of a Public Character (IPCs) - which can receive tax-deductible donations - doubled from $381 million in 2001 to $776 million in 2010.

Of that sum in 2010, gifts from individual donors totalled $269 million. That worked out to be a donation of $52.95 per person to IPCs, more than double the $20.53 in 2001.

The study of data from the Commissioner of Charities was done by Associate Professor Lam Swee Sum, director of the Asia Centre for Social Entrepreneurship and Philanthropy at the National University of Singapore (NUS) Business School, and research associate Gabriel Henry Jacob.

A key finding: The fallout from the 2005 National Kidney Foundation (NKF) scandal was not as bad as many feared.

Home truths in a post-deferential age

This is the text of a speech by MP for East Coast GRC Raymond Lim, at a forum at the Fengshan division of the GRC last Saturday

Published The Straits Times, 3 Mar 2012

THE organising committee of this inaugural Civic Forum @ Fengshan has suggested that I go beyond the immediate headlines of the day and touch on some of the longer-term issues concerning our future.

Here are some home truths.

First, welcome to the Post-Deferential Age. People are more questioning. More critical. More assertive. This is not a disaster for Singapore. I believe that in a world where the premium is on creativity and innovation, a less deferential frame of mind towards authority is what is needed for us to succeed and stay relevant. In fact, it may well help us avoid national disaster.

Some years ago, I wrote a column in The Straits Times arguing that while it is true that if all of us in the Singapore boat were to row together, we will reach our destination faster; it is also true that if no one dares raise his or her hand to question the captain on the direction we are going, we may end up at the wrong destination faster. So the fact that increasingly more ordinary people are willing to stand up, speak out and be counted is not a reason for furrowed brows and intense hand-wringing. It is far better to have an engaged citizenry than one that is switched off. As has been said: 'Apathy is the glove into which evil slips its hand.'

So speak up and stand up for what you believe in. But you must have the courage to speak up not just in voicing popular discontent but in opposing it when you know in your hearts that it is right to do so.

It used to be said that there is a climate of fear which deters people from speaking up against government policies. Today, the pendulum has swung the other way. What is worrying is not that it seems to be open season on the government but that ordinary people are worried that if they speak up in support of an unpopular policy or against a populist view; they are immediately pilloried and flamed on the Net. People are not worried about honest debate. People are not worried about criticisms. But what they are afraid of is the completely unbalanced and personal nature of the criticisms.

But yet you need to speak up.

By all means speak up when you think the government is wrong or could do better; but also speak up when you think it is right even though the vociferous crowd is on the other side. If you concede this civic space, not speaking up for our collective interests, then our society will start to fragment as populist voices and special interests will slice up our common welfare. What we need more of today is a greater concern and emphasis on the national interest and less on individual interest. If we don't, we will be lesser for this.

If we are all standing in very different positions, viewing things through individual lenses, then it will be difficult to agree on what matters most. It will be difficult to come together as a society to take actions to secure a better future for all despite short-term pain. Then this beautiful city of ours will surely suffer as a House divided cannot go forward.

Finally, as I have been asked many times on this, I would like to assure you that it is not true that the government only receives feedback that it wants to hear. There are many direct feedback channels - from dialogue sessions to the social media. These are direct public channels and thus unfiltered by any bureaucratic 'good news only' censorship machine.

The challenge is not that the feedback is selective but that the government needs to be selective in deciding the weight and priority to be given to the various feedback and suggestions that it receives as resources are finite. What feedback that the government chooses to take into account and act on turns on its judgment and leadership to which it will be held accountable by the electorate.

This is the difference between being in government and running for government. If you are in government, you have to make decisions that often involve difficult trade-offs and balancing different interests - 'more of this and less of that' or 'one group happy, the other angry'.

If you are running for government, you are free to promise the moon without the responsibility of considering what the cost is and how to pay for it. Going forward, public opinion will play a greater role in policymaking as our population matures.

But taking into account public opinion is not a straightforward matter as often the public itself is divided. Some say 'Yes' to an elder care centre in the void deck of an HDB flat while others say 'No'. The government will then have to decide what is in the overall public interest. Even if the public is of one mind on an issue or policy; it may be necessary for the government to argue or decide otherwise. This is because we elect the government to lead rather than to follow. Lest we forget, popular government has never been a guarantee of good government. And if we indeed forget this, then we have no one to blame but ourselves as people get the government they deserve.

More BTO flats for second-timers, help for retirees and multi-generation families: Budget 2012 MND COS

By Joanne Chan, Channel NewsAsia, 2 Mar 2012

Second timers applying for a Build-To-Order (BTO) flat, retirees looking to age-in-place, and multi-generation families have received a housing boost from the Ministry of National Development.

National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan announced tweaks to balloting rules for second-timers during the Committee of Supply debate for his ministry in Parliament on Friday.

He said these are aimed at building strong families, encouraging Singaporeans to own their homes, and also to govern with a "heart" and help the less well-off.

Mr Khaw said when he stepped into the ministry a year ago, it was facing a "hot housing problem".

There were lessons to learn from pioneers who led Singapore's Housing Board.

He said they focused on the longer term greater good of many, putting community interest above self interest, and dared to try.

Mr Khaw said because of that, they turned Toa Payoh into a thriving modern township and Singapore into a world-renowned Garden City.

He recalled the work of those like the late Dr Toh Chin Chye and Mr Lim Kim San, the Housing Board's first Chairman.

Mr Khaw said under Mr Lim's watch, public housing and home ownership became firmly established and eventually, became the Singaporean way of life.

He said he stepped into an MND facing a severe mismatch in supply and demand, which, coupled with global liquidity and low interest rates, caused sharp spikes in housing prices.

Mr Khaw said: "The situation reminded me of a speech that the late Dr Goh Keng Swee made in 1980 on the plight of pig farmers. He spoke on what the economists refer to as the pig cycle. When the price of pork is high, pig farmers rear more pigs in the hope of making more money. However, when the piglets grow up and reach the market, there is a glut and prices drop. Farmers then cut the number of piglets they raise, thereby ensuring that when these mature, there will be a shortage and prices go up again."

He said months of corrective action have brought some stability to the housing market.